The present invention relates to personalized sound systems, in particular an ear-level device adapted to be worn on the ear, and the use of a companion device to control one or more functional elements of the ear-level device.
Ear-level devices, including headphones, earphones, head sets, hearing aids and the like, are adapted to be worn on the ear of a user and provide personal sound processing. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/569,449, entitled Personal Sound System Including Multi-Mode Ear-level Module with Priority Logic, published as U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US-2007-0255435-A1, is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein. In US-2007-0255435-A1, a multi-mode ear-level device is described in which configuration of the ear-level device and call processing functions for a companion mobile phone are described in detail.
Ear-level devices typically have one or more functional elements, such as on-off switches and volume controls, on the device itself. However, because of the small size of many ear-level devices, the size, number and placement of functional elements is typically limited. This limitation on the functional elements can reduce the flexibility and usability of the ear-level device.